Two words for two

In an earlier post, I finished showing how to count in Mandarin, including large numbers and some of the odd features of the counting, like the way that Chinese say two ten-thousands rather than twenty-thousand.

But another thing that I constantly messed up when first learning Mandarin was the word for two. And that’s because there are two words for two. I suppose that’s not surprising if you think about how many words we use for zero.

二 (èr) is two and

两 (liǎng) is also two

二 (èr) is most commonly used for counting like one, two, three, and so on.

It’s also used for positions:

第 二 个 (dì èr gè) means “the second one”

第 二 次 (dì èr cì) means “the second time”

But when you are describing a number of things (and using measure words), you typically use 两 (liǎng) instead.

两 天 (liǎng tiān) is two days

两 个 月 (liǎng gè yuè) is two months

两 块 (liǎng kuài) is two pieces (of something - and can be money)

But there are always exceptions

I would have expected two o’clock to be the counting version but it’s not. It’s:

两 点 (liǎng diǎn) is two o’clock (I can only imagine that it somehow relates to two positions on the clock)

And even in numbers, 两 (liǎng) can be used, to count the number of hundreds and so on:

二百 (èr bǎi) is two hundred but 两百 (liǎngbǎi) is also commonly used.

Sometimes, mixtures will be used:

一千两百零二本书 (yī qiān liǎng bǎi líng èr běn shū) is one thousand, two hundred and two books

So you can be forgiven if it’s not all immediately obvious.

2019-04-12